Ternary ZnO/AgI/Ag2CO3 nanocomposites: Novel visible-light-driven photocatalysts with excellent activity in degradation of different water pollutants

Abstract

ZnO/AgI/Ag2CO3 nanocomposites with different Ag2CO3 contents were fabricated by a facile ultrasonic-irradiation method. The resultant samples were fairly characterized using XRD, EDX, SEM, TEM, UV–vis DRS, FT-IR, and PL techniques to reveal their microstructure, purity, morphology, and spectroscopic properties. Photocatalytic activity of the prepared samples was investigated by photodegradation of four dye pollutants (rhodamine B, methyl orange, methylene blue, and fuchsine) under visible-light irradiation. The photocatalytic experiments in degradation of rhodamine B showed that the ternary ZnO/AgI/Ag2CO3 (30%) nanocomposite has an enhanced activity nearly 19 and 14 times higher than those of the binary ZnO/Ag2CO3 and ZnO/AgI photocatalysts, respectively. Based on the obtained results, the highly enhanced activity was attributed to generation of more electron-hole pairs under visible-light irradiation and separation of the photogenerated charge carriers due to formation of tandem n-n heterojunctions between counterparts of the nanocomposite. The active species trapping experiments were also examined and it was showed that superoxide ion radicals play a vital role in the photocatalytic degradation reaction. More importantly, the ternary photocatalyst demonstrated good photostability.